The court in St. Petersburg approved the extension of the arrest of the defendant in the “anti-war case”

The St. Petersburg City Court approved the decision to extend the arrest until August 1 of the artist Sasha Skochilenko. This is reported by SOTA.

The girl is accused under the article on “fakes” about the Russian army (clause “d”, part 2, article 207.3 of the Criminal Code) - she faces up to ten years in prison.

According to investigators, Skochilenko replaced the price tags in the Perekrestok store with leaflets with information about the shelling of the Mariupol drama theater and the death of civilians. The investigator considers the disseminated information to be false, and the action itself to be committed based on political hostility. The activist admitted distributing the leaflets, but she does not consider herself guilty and denies that she disseminated false information.

The case against Skochilenko was opened in the spring - on April 13, she was sent to a pre-trial detention center by decision of the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg. For a long time, the staff of the detention center where she was placed refused to provide the artist with products that did not contain gluten (Skochilenko has celiac disease - gluten intolerance). Because of this, the girl's health deteriorated .

In the pre-trial detention center, Skochilenko was also bullied by her fellow inmates. In May, she was moved to a double cell with another roommate and provided with hot, gluten-free meals.

• Since February 24—the first day of the “special operation” in Ukraine—residents of Russian cities have been going out to anti-war rallies every day and talking about the tragedy online. Anti-war speeches and statements become grounds for criminal prosecution. At the moment, more than 190 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protest against the war with Ukraine. Read more about this in our guide .
• Article 207.3 (Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation) was included in the Criminal Code in March 2022 - in this way the authorities responded to anti-war speeches and statements, as well as the dissemination of information about the war that does not come from official Russian sources. The maximum penalty under this article is 15 years in prison.